Wellness and Spiritual Counseling in North Carolina
Start of the Mary & Martha Center
About
Jana Strukova, Ph.D.
Jana Strukova, Ph. D., is the founder and Executive Director of The Mary and Martha Center for Women and Community Care. Jana has decades of experience in leadership, higher education, and interdisciplinary studies in theology and psychology. Her focus is helping her clients find deepening and meaningful ways to work through questions of faith and spiritual practices. Jana loves to learn new things, meet new people, and experience new ideas and cultures.
She has traveled extensively and has collected different perspectives and areas of wisdom through the different cultures, ethnic groups, and geographies she has encountered. She loves passing her wisdom along to others and helping them put their fears and anxieties into perspective of knowledge and clarity. Jana has had the privilege of working with skilled mentors in the past, and she is personally committed to providing compassionate and wise mentoring to her clients at the same level.
Jana’s Story
Jana came to the United States as an immigrant from Slovakia without connections, money, or influence. She has truly worked her way up from the bottom.
Now, she strives to facilitate the same opportunities for her clients. Her background and faith have provided her with the values she holds dear today: selflessness, virtue, acts of service, and integrity.
She is particularly compassionate about helping people and communities who are overlooked and unacknowledged, especially women. Her goal is to empower the underserved, help them realize their potential and self-worth, and allow them to shine.
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What The Mary and Martha Center means to Jana Strukova
Jana believes that “…truly holistic care is restorative care. Restorative care embraces hope and the inner reservoir of strengths and virtues that every individual has been endowed with. In this model, people who come to health providers for healing are not failing in the sense of personal deficiency (although one must admit that in a strictly mechanistic view of the human body, their organs might not be performing at medically expected levels). Restorative care does not see people’s behaviors as problems (despite not conforming to behavioral standards for what constitutes normalcy), and therefore it does not engage in an asymmetrical relationship between a fixer (a health care professional) and an object (a patient) who needs fixing and recalibrating.”
Jana dives deeper into this concept, the backstory, and the manifestation of this nonprofit within her book Befriend: Taking Care of Community through Nonprofit.
Jana as a
Public Scholar and Missionary
Jana comes to this field of work as an academic, teacher, author, and missionary.
In her first two publications, Jana’s scholarship revolved around youth and their Christian spiritual formation. In her third publication, she builds on her entrepreneurial experience with running a nonprofit in mental health services. Befriend: Taking Care for Community through Nonprofit was launched in December 2023. The book represents an interdisciplinary analysis of community, nonprofit, health care, friendship, holistic, and others. It offers strategies and practices for building healthier and more connected communities. Churches, faith-based nonprofits, mental health providers, and institutions of theological studies can benefit from this publication.
Global Missional Work
Currently, Jana is working on researching care for displaced communities due to war conflicts. Her initiative involves learning about war-initiated traumas of women in Liberia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, mainly Ukraine. Jana has been traveling to her home country, Slovakia, to help the Ukrainian refugees, compile stories of Ukrainian families, and learn about the dynamics of living in host countries. As an immigrant herself, Jana’s personal and professional efforts highlight displaced people’s struggles and offer a compassionate presence through her teaching and mission trips.
Trips and Educational Events
In partnership with the UMC of Western North Carolina and Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., Jana Strukova will lead a trip to Eastern Europe in May 2024.
Being a Church with the Displaced: Missions with Ukrainian Refugees represents an educational trip and a class for credit (for those who choose so) to visit Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary from May 13-26, 20024. Registration will open in January, and all interested persons can return to this website for more information.
The Philosophical Faculty of Šafárik University
Prešov, Slovakia M.Ed. in Linguistic
Studies and Educational Psychology, 1994
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, NJ
Ph.D., Practical Theology, 2007
Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta GA 2007-2008
Post-doctoral fellow and instructor in Practical Theology and Religious Practices.
2008-present
Higher Theological Education and Nonprofit Sector
Speaking Engagements With Jana
Jana is the founder and Executive Director of The Mary and Martha Center. She has an extensive background in theology and social sciences. Her work has taken her around the world, where she has worked with a diverse population and developed a focus on helping women, specifically minorities and immigrants, to overcome spiritual and material crises.
Currently, Jana helps her native Slovakia and hometown with establishing a psychological and pastoral care center for refugees from Ukraine and other countries.
Jana has written multiple books and has extensive experience as a professor teaching at seminaries, leading workshops, and other collaborative events. Her latest book treats the concepts of nonprofit and community formation and mental health.
Schedule a speaking engagement with Jana, and she will deliver a moving, inspirational, and meaningful discourse.
Why Work With Jana And Her Team At The Mary And Martha Center For Women
Jana takes an unconventional and open-minded approach towards life and a person’s wellbeing. She is equipped to guide people in the questions of personal discernment through her training in theology and spirituality.
Jana has the experience and dedication needed to connect her clients to their true purpose or path in life and help them find value and contentment.
She is highly intuitive and can see connections and patterns in events and lifestyle habits that others might miss. Her creativity, empathy, and intuition help her discern the healing energies needed to begin the journey toward healing.
She doesn’t work alone though. Her team comprises unique, dedicated, and compassionate women with experience, training, and wisdom to assist women on their path to overall health.
Begin Your Journey With Jana And Her Team Today
If you’re ready to begin your healing journey, call or contact us online to explore how we can help. We offer expert guidance, consultations, counseling, and conversations in the fields of mental health, mentoring, stress-management, faith-based healing, spirituality, self-care, holistic wellness, and more. Let us help you be the best person you can be by reaching out to us today.